


fool's gold

by lupinsmiles (perbe)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, almost not quite wolfstar, sort of wolfstar, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perbe/pseuds/lupinsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So what do you want, Moony?” </p><p>“Too much,” Remus offers.</p><p>“Brilliant,” Sirius says. </p><p>(Of the Dreaded Pudding and the Prank, among other things. Otherwise known as how Remus Lupin mastered the Patronus Charm.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	fool's gold

**Author's Note:**

> blood laughs in our veins,  
> amidst this tangle of vines.
> 
> (may banners, rimbaud)
> 
> recommended listening music: fool's gold, by the middle east.

-

" _Y_ _ou can go first.”_

_"How generous.”_

_The year is 1977. The subject is Defense Against the Dark Arts. The class is of the Patronus Charm. The students speaking are Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, and the latter has gallantly offered to step down from his would-be-astonishing demonstration of his mastery of everything, ha ha. The former is suffering from expectation._

_Sirius leans against their desk, twirling his wand idly. “Just give it a go.”_

_Remus has exactly one memory of what it was like to be human, when his bones were his, not alien things that reach back home to the moon every time it’s full. It is a good memory. He’s wedged between his mum and his dad in the back of a cab and it’s pouring. The tires weave trails through the rain that disappear within milliseconds. It’s his first time in London and it’s just like a happenstance of the rain._

_His mum is singing something soft and muggle. She pulls him close._

_He doesn’t want to explain this to Sirius, so he says, “Expecto Patronum,” already knowing that nothing will happen. When it really doesn’t, he lets out a sigh._

-

But like most things, it really starts with James’s thrice-accursed hair poking into Sirius’s ear.

Sirius—he’s a bit touchy about his ears—lets out a strangled noise and swats at James. Unfortunately, this isn’t the cleverest thing he has ever done. The both of them are under the invisibility cloak and on some sort of Gryffindor initiation that they will no doubt inflict on some hapless first years when they become slightly less hapless second years. Filch is hot on their trails, and Merlin, the bloody book will not stop screaming—

“Ouch! That was my ear you—“

“Shh,” Sirius hisses, and shoves James towards the nearest open door.

Wonderful, lovely, stupid James ignores him. Between wheezes: “Of all the books in the forbidden section, we get the one that screams bloody murder.”

If it weren’t so dark, Sirius would roll his eyes. He makes do with wadding up whatever’s in his reach of James’s cloak and stuffing it in the book’s mouth. It makes a muffled sound of protest. But then again, that could’ve easily been James.

“That’s the one we’re supposed to get you sod—that’s the point. It screams. Quick, in here.” Sirius pulls the door shut behind them. The both of them are breathing heavily. Sirius can feel the book squirming in his hands. His bangs and the invisibility cloak are plastered to his forehead by sweat. Sirius shrugs the cloak to the ground and breathes in, James suddenly visible beside him.

“Longbottom,” James says, sprawling over the floor and letting out a groan. The screaming book is still attached to his Hogwarts crest. Sirius lies down beside him. “Longarsehole. He _knew_ Filch would hear. And Merlin’s beard, get this thing _off_.”

“I don’t think so. It likes you, don’t be cruel.”

“You are an anus.”

“Thanks, mate, that really made me want to lend you a hand. Literally.”

“It’s eating my bloody robes! Sirius, this isn’t funny—“

And James rolls over on top of him and he’s heavy enough for all the air to squeeze out from Sirius’s lungs so Sirius sticks his elbow into James’s ribs and then both of them are rolling and there is a hole in James’s cloak and at some point, the book is knocked unconscious, and James gets him in a headlock and they’ve probably failed the initiation anyway—

“Potter is a rotter. Potter is a rotter, a rotter, rotten rotting rotter—“

“Shut it, you’re the one who said Filch might catch us—“

“Wait, James.”

Sirius pushes James off with difficulty and stands up. The cool surface is a mirror. It has dark spots here and there. There are runes around the edges. Sirius recognizes some from the covers of the books in Grimmauld Place, yet the lighting, or perhaps the unconscious book, has spilled warmth over their foreboding nature. Perhaps it’s because the mirror’s smoothness has depth, as if his hand could slip into the glass.

Or maybe it’s because Regulus is reaching back. Regulus who’s in France and who smiles and waves from his couch, a cup of hot cocoa in his hands. Who pats the cushion next to him as if they’re ten and nine again, creating more and more elaborate orders for Kreacher to get past their mother’s rules.

He starts, eyebrows knit, something with too many sharp angles caught in his throat. Regulus isn’t in France—he’s sitting in the Gryffindor common room, a scarlet and gold tie ‘round his throat. Behind him sits Remus and Peter, both of whom turn and smile at him, too. Well, him and James. And maybe they’re all in on this—Regulus must have flooed here. Secretly, oh yes, he’d want to see Sirius and then he’d realize Gryffindor wasn’t so bad after all—Gryffindor is marvelous! Sirius could—could—

Sirius’s hand brushes against the glass. Hot blooded and shivering like this, he’s not made of the same material as the room he sees.

“Do you see what I’m seeing?” James is saying.

Sirius grins. Their mother isn’t going to be happy about this, but she’s never happy about anything, really. “Yeah. Merlin. And his sodding balls. I can’t believe it—I didn’t know he had it in him.”

“Had it in him? You mean in me? You sure know how what a mate needs to hear, eh, Black?”

“In you?”

“I mean, look at me! I’m Head Boy. _And_ I’ve got that broom I’ve been wanting—and look, I’m Quidditch Captain too. And that food looks good—blimey, we skipped dinner for this initiation, didn’t we—“

Ice-tempered glass in his veins. Sirius seizes James by the shoulders and pushes him closer to the mirror. “No, it’s—it’s my brother, he’s in the common room. Don’t you see him? He looks just like me, almost.”

James shakes his head. “Sorry, mate. I see myself getting the last turkey leg. I guess it shows different things to different people.” He knocks on the glass. “Weird.”

“I ‘spose.” Sirius shrugs like it will cast off the meaning. Still, his reflection sits down beside Reg and steals a sip from his hot cocoa and the both of them are grinning like madcaps, not quite mirror images, and he’s seeing it, surely it must be true. And this too: James can’t even try out for the quidditch team yet and Regulus hasn’t been sorted. Yet. “What if this thing shows us the future?”

“Then I’m going to have a good one.” James peers at his reflection. “I look real good.”

Sirius snorts. “Then I’m probably wrong. You’re one ugly bloke, Potter.”

“Oi! Take that back!”

There is a shrill sound. The book is screaming again. Sirius looks at James, who looks back at him. “Bloody hell,” Sirius says.

They start running.

-

_“You’re thinking too hard.”_

_The air around them is thick with silver smoke. Remus’s hands are shaking. Sirius won’t stop looking at him—Sirius is still (unnaturally so), his head cocked to the side as if listening for a far-off sound._

_“I know,” Sirius continues as if he’d said something, grey eyes trying to meet his own, “I’m not one to talk. But I can tell you are, see, even if I haven’t given it a go yet.”_

_“Expecto Patronum,” Remus says, and points his wand right at Sirius’s nose._

_Sirius sneezes._

-

Regulus is sorted into Slytherin. Everyone claps. Sirius, too, out of instinct, even if he glares at his traitorous hands for hours after dinner. Even if long after darkness paints silence along the corridors, he slips from the second year dormitory with James’s cloak wrapped around his shoulders. Past the Fat Lady and the library to the oaken door with its rusty hinges, his bare feet freezing in the chill air.

For a moment, he pauses with his hand hovering over the handle, the rest of him invisible. Then he slips into the room, drawing James’s cloak tighter around himself. Here, the floor has a heartbeat. It presses against his soles and numbs them so that he drifts to the mirror and rests his palm against the glass as if in a dream. Like in a story, Sirius considers looking away but it’s too late—and there he is again, Regulus, in his Gryffindor robes, hot cocoa in hand. Bathsheba perches on a nearby cushion; upon closer inspection, the ornate script of the letter in her beak is their parents’ signatures, with love. Regulus is saying something to the Sirius within the glass, and something in his stomach twists.

“I thought you’d be here,” Remus says, and melts into view from the shadows.

Sirius watches him, but Remus doesn’t come closer.

“James kept talking about a mirror that shows you the future. I was curious.”

“He told you what I saw?”

“Not really.” Remus leans against the wall, out of sight of the mirror. He pushes the door shut with a click. “He said you kept brooding about it. Then I saw your brother at the sorting and I followed you here.”

“You’re awful smart.”

Remus ducks his head so that it’s obscured in the shadows of the doorway. “I just put two and two together. Do you—I mean—do you mind that I did?”

“No,” Sirius answers, surprised. “’Course not.”

They stand in silence, the both of them suffering from a collective shiver that passes through the room. Then, as if choreographed, they move closer, meeting by the window where the moonlight trickles in, where they can’t see their not-futures reflected in the mirror. They sit down on top of James’s cloak, too-long legs and cold knuckles.

“Did you see your future?”

“My future?” Remus echoes.

“I guess I don’t have another word for it. So, did you?”

Remus leans against the wall. He does this funny laugh. Sirius feels like he has just been told a secret. “Yeah.”

“What did you see?” The icicles hanging from the glass-roof cast shimmery shadows along the glass-floor—a vow of silence.

Sirius feels the pause rather than hearing it. He hears the furrow between Remus’s brows.

“My mum, healthy.”

“Oh.”

One, two. Three. Four. Five.

But he loses count by fifty, so he has no idea when Remus begins to drift off for minutes at a time. It is during one of these intervals that Sirius finally whispers, “I see Reg. Only he isn’t a Slytherin—he’s a Gryffindor. And we’re sat on the couch by the fireplace, the one with the odd-looking stain on the back. And he’s drinking hot cocoa—well, he’s trying, only I keep stealing it from him and he lets me do it—and Bathsheba’s just gotten us a letter from our parents.”

Remus mumbles something against the wall. Sirius waits until his breathing evens again before continuing.

“But, the best thing is, there are presents against the wall and it looks an awful lot like Christmas. Blimey, we’ve had Christmas last year, but see—see, it doesn’t feel like it until your owl’s flying everywhere with like a hundred presents.” He catches sight of his shadow and its wildly gesticulating arms. He lowers his voice. “And—and—they got me a broom. A Shooting Star, I think. Then Regulus says something to me in the mirror and even if I can’t hear, me—the one in the mirror—can, and I feel so, so—“

He looks at Remus who sleeps just as anyone else does. Who has secrets Sirius has yet to discover. Soon, he promises himself, and wonders if Remus is trying to figure him out, too.

“You better well be asleep. Merlin—I’m so, so bloody jealous. It’s stupid—this is so stupid.” Sirius sniffs. It’s disgusting. He’s got snot down his chin and his breath keeps hitching and when he wipes at his face with his sleeve, he only makes it worse. “Shit,” he says. “Shit. You can’t switch houses, can you? That fucking idiot—that fucking—stupid fucking idiot—“

If Remus hears, he gives no sign of having done so.

-

_“Maybe you can tickle the dementors away,” Sirius suggests, after the lesson. He’s flushed with whatever it is idiots are flushed with (blood?) and his hair has caught static from all the magic. Every so often, he tries to work up enough static to zap Peter, who eventually slips away to lunch after a particularly nasty zap. But of course, Sirius has just managed a whole translucent fog—another part of the injustice Remus has come to associate with him. “Eh, Moony?”_

_Remus, who’s only managed his fair share of wisps, considers kicking him. Instead, he slings his backpack across his shoulders and squeezes past the Gobstones Club to History of Magic where, at least, Sirius can’t follow him even if he wanted to._

-

But you see, James goes extra mad around Christmas. He gets up early and decks himself in the most outrageous shades of red and green he can scavenge from their trunks.

Peter is the one who suffers most for James’s energy. Well, excluding James himself, that is. The both of them are in a pudding eating contest that’s sickening to watch—which means the entire Gryffindor table has crowded around them, along with assorted Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and, Sirius suspects, some incognito Slytherins.

James burps.

“I reckon he’s about done,” Remus says. “He’s starting to look like the Fat Friar.”

“That’s unkind,” Sirius says. “He’s only just about as wide as Slughorn.”

James burps again. His skin is greener than anything Sirius has ever seen. Still, he goes on shoveling spoonfuls of pudding into his mouth.  

“I think he’s in a trance,” Alice says. “Potter, are you alright?”

James burps in response.

Peter looks up from his pile of empty dessert cups and wipes the whipped cream from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“That,” James says thickly, forcing his shaking hand to his mouth, “is the point, Petey-boy.”

Remus rolls his eyes. “You’re both going to be sick. Alright, you can stop this now.”

James polishes off his current cup of pudding between loud belches. “I’ll never surrender,” he manages—and the crowd cheers and moves in closer and Sirius, who is torn between awe and disgust, slings an arm around James and Peter and cackles when they both turn even greener—if possible.  

“You are sick,” Peter groans. He lobs a spoonful of pudding at James’s face, who’s either too tired to dodge or going all out in his teenage grossness. “Sick! Ugh, I don’t even remember what it feels like to ever want to eat pudding. You sick, sick—”

“Sick winner,” James says, because when his competitive side is provoked, he goes even madder and licks what he can reach of the pudding on his face. He looks rather menacing, even if his burps are too loud to be healthy. “I win.”

Alice shoots them all—James and Peter with their faces and sleeves plastered with chocolate pudding and Sirius and Remus sitting on the side and all the onlookers—a look of exasperated amusement. “Break it up, everyone—the show’s over. Go back to your common rooms or I’ll have to get McGonagall.”

“C’mon Alice,” Sirius says, batting his eyelashes, “for me?”

“Especially not you, Black,” Alice says. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about last year. You’d best remember I can give you detentions now, eh?”

So the crowd dissipates with scattered grumbling and a series of bench legs scraping against the ground and Sirius leans in closer to James and Peter and Remus and says, “Being Head Girl’s ruined her sense of humor.”

“She wasn’t a prefect before, was she?” James asks.

“Nah, she was at least as bad as us. But now she’s old, her glory days are past and all that.”

“Frank doesn’t think she’s old.”

“Frank’s in looooveeeeeeee,” says Peter.

“Frank is a lowly fourth year, unworthy of her affections.”

“You’re a third year, James.”

“Thanks, Remus, I really didn’t know that.”

Sirius scrutinizes the empty dessert cups on the table. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to the kitchens.”

“Let’s not,” Peter says. He’s still faintly green. It’s not a good color on him. “I’ll puke on all your robes. All of them—it’s a promise.”

 “I’ve got a better idea,” James says. “Let’s go to the mirror. Pete hasn’t seen it yet, have you? It shows you the future. It’s wicked.”

“The future?” Peter says, dubious.

“Mate. The future. The _future_.”

Remus looks at Sirius just long enough for him to meet his gaze. Sirius looks away and proves his nonchalance by fishing a string of grapes from a platter and leading the way to the mirror, smacking his lips loudly to make Peter cringe—even if they’re doing it wrong. This sort of thing is more effective after hours, when they aren’t allowed. James, he wants to say, see, in the dark, it could at least be true.  

-

_A conversation he overhears the next morning, when they think he is sleeping:_

_“You’ve been moping since. What’s with you?”_

_“Almost Christmas break, Prongs. Gotta do it now, yeah?”_

_“Don’t.”_

_“Come off it, you were just telling me to lighten up.”_

_“That was two days ago, when I didn’t think your grand game plan was to be as obnoxious as humanly possible—or Merlin knows what you are, Pads, you sure don’t act human—to him until he says more than five syllables to you—you, you are an idiot, you are.”_

_“It’s Christmas.”_

_“It’s the fucking fifteenth, Chrissake.”_

_“Details, Wormy! Who fucking cares? And he’s going back tomorrow. So. It’s fucking Christmas.”_

_“Padfoot, just shut up.”_

_“Fuck, Wormmmyyy.”_

_“What it is, Sirius, is you being an arse.”_

_“I only said sorry about a million times, you know. What else am I supposed to do? And anyway, you weren’t like this two months ago—you—you—Snape’s fine, shouldn’t you be more worried about, you know, your actual fucking mates?”_

_“I am. That’s why we’re telling you to take that fucking foot out of your fucking mouth you fucking wanker.”_

_“Fuck you. Fuck you both.”_

_Remus hears the door slamming, followed by the creaking protest of springs sagging under the weight of people who are going to pretend they’re good at pretending nothing’s happened. He pulls the covers over his head and counts one, two, three, us liars, we thought we were being clever._

-

Peter, as it turns out, sees himself as an auror. Sirius snorts unkindly. James slaps him. Remus sneaks a grape from the trellis entwined around Sirius’s fingers.

James says, “Mate, it’s the future. It’s fixed. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Sirius says nothing then and, in a fit of sullenness, says nothing for the rest of the day. At night, he drops the now barren vine into James’s trunk in exchange for the invisibility cloak—which he shrugs on before anyone can tell him to just fucking sleep, he can never explain why the bloody hell he can’t well leave something alone when it’s night and there’s a point to prove, anyway. But he’s taken in by gravity—a tricky thing. It pools in all the places you try not to store your thoughts.

He says, “Remus?”

“Sorry.” Remus needn’t have said it aloud.

“Why’d you come here this time?”  

“I fell asleep the last time.”

“Liar.”

He hears the breath hitching its way past Remus’s throat. “You knew?”

“I guessed.” The mirror keeps up with the times. Regulus is the Gryffindor seeker. He holds the snitch high in his fist and James tousles his hair.

“Sorry.” Remus peels himself from the wall and stands in front of the mirror, where he laughs the same odd little laugh he did the year before. “You can Obliviate me, as long as you don’t end up permanently frying my mind.”

“You’re fine.”

“Thanks.”

“Your mum isn’t sick, is she?”

The air between them has a swampy viscosity. 

“You should apologize to Pete,” Remus finally says. His tone is even but Sirius can see the tension even under the two layers of cardigans so he goes on watching Remus’s expression decide on studied calmness. The color all drained from him like this, it makes Sirius want say sorry, not to Pete even if he’s sorry for that, too, even if he’s not sure for what—so he doesn’t—the formula is a secret for a secret, right? But he waits and Remus says nothing and he’s hoping from foot to foot from the cold.

Fucking hell, Remus saw him _cry_.

“Alright,” Sirius says. “Don’t say anything. I shouldn’t’ve fucking asked.”

And Remus, quiet and sure: “No. You shouldn’t have.”

-

_Remember this: as if he doesn’t know his reflection is cursed, by third year, Sirius Black is fluent in the way his elbows press close to his body and he has a moment where he understands what it feels like to be Snape—to want to skin Sirius alive with his bare hands. As if his secrets aren’t taut things tamping down his bones. As if it he has very many secrets left to keep, and maybe one day—_

_Remember in fourth year, it is Peter who finally says, “Let’s not go this year.”_

_And it is James who responds first. “Why not? I thought it was tradition by now.”_

_“It’s not really the future, is it?”_

_“’Course it is. I made the team, didn’t I? Aren’t I good on the pitch?”_

_“That’s different,” Peter says._

_“Why’s it any different from what you saw? You’re plenty smart enough to be an auror. Sirius, you think so too, don’t you?”_

_Sirius, who’s learning kindness, says, “You know I do. Don’t forget you nicked the lacewings.”_

_“Lacewings?” Remus’s mouth isn’t supposed to open on its own like this. (Maybe he already knows then, that one year later, they’ll all be sitting on the same bunks telling him about the Animagus transformation.) “What do you need lacewings for?”_

_“Alright, Black, shut it.”_

_“Well, if Moony wants to know—“_

_“He doesn’t,” James says, “do you, Moony? Anyway, Pete, it’s not like we need a mirror to tell us what we can do. If we really want something, like really want it, we gotta work for it, yeah?”_

_And Pete. “It’s whatever. We’ll go if you want to.”_

_“I don’t want to go,” Sirius says. He tips his head back off the edge of his bed and something in his neck pops into place audibly. Remus was listening for the click. “It’s a sham.”_

_“Is not.”_

_“It is.”_

_James looks at Peter. Sirius looks at the dead air between their bunks. Remus tries not to rest his gaze on any of them for too long—it is entirely likely they cannot withstand such close scrutiny._

_“I already knew, I guess, that I couldn’t be an auror.”_

_“Merlin—fuck—yes, you can Pete—you don’t need a bloody mirror to tell you that.”_

_“You could,” Remus says. “We all think so.”_

_“Fuck,” James says. “Merlin. Fuck. Sometimes Sirius says stupid things. That’s why we don’t always listen to him.”_

_“It’s true, isn’t it?” Peter asks. “Didn’t you mean it?”_

_When Sirius says nothing, James pushes the pillows stacked at the edge of his bed to the floor. This is movement, at last. Something breaks. They all watch Sirius slip from his bunk and sink into the pillows. Then, Peter. Maybe James. Remus doesn’t remember the order, but soon they’re all looking at the quidditch posters and spitballs and gunk on the ceiling with the floor against the backs of their heads, necks arced over the scattered pillows, voices flush against skin. There is nothing to watch. Everything is unthinkable. Parchment with fragile illuminations in glass displays—not for touching, mind, says Madame Pince._

_Tomorrow, they leave for James’s house. Remus has never been; he has a letter in his trunk from his parents with their thanks on which he plans to conduct a study on the growth of mold._

_Someone laughs._

_They all laugh._

_This is it._

_-_

“I thought we promised not to come here again.” He walks closer. If he keeps his eyes trained on Remus’s back, he won’t be able to make out their reflections. Yet perhaps it’s already too much, knowing they’re there. “Happy Christmas.”

This time, it is Sirius slipping from the shadows. Their map sticks out from a pair of jeans he’s nicked from James’s that can occasionally be flattered into offering a racy rendition of God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs.  Somewhere on its surface—the map’s, not the vaguely brackish jeans’—Remus Lupin’s footsteps trail to the door and Sirius Black near leaves a smudge he’s moving so fast to stop him—

“Let me leave,” Remus says peaceably.

“I don’t think so,” Sirius says. “Come on, Moony.”

And Remus quirks an eyebrow like he’s waiting to hear why he should _come on_ , but Sirius can’t find his response. So he fills up the doorway with his arms and legs and cloak. He’s looking down at Remus and trying very hard not to laugh—because that would be very inappropriate, damn it, he feels himself cracking—the corner of his lips twitch; it isn’t his fault the furrow of Remus’s brows curve like a joke and the important thing is, it would fill the silence, wouldn’t it?  

“It’s not funny.”

“No, it isn’t.” He stalls for time by knocking iambs against the doorframe. Well, he doesn’t really know what iambs are, but he has to call this something. “Moony, can’t you—?”

“Can’t I what, Padfoot?”

“Forget about it,” Sirius says and right away realizes no, this isn’t what he means. He can tell by the way Remus shrinks away it’s exactly the worst possible thing to say. Any moment now, any moment Remus will push past him, but really, it’s _Christmas_ , it can’t—and _that_ isn’t what he means either: “I mean, he’s fine, yeah?”

“Who’s fine?”

“Snivellus.”

“Fuck you,” Remus says. He smiles, almost kindly. “Let me through.”

Sirius presses his forearms against the door, his left foot tapping against the tiled floor. “No. Wait, alright?”

A sigh. “I’m waiting.”

“Okay,” Sirius says, and rakes a hand through his hair shakily, because once is enough isn’t it—if he ends up crying he’ll have to, he’ll have to—oh, he doesn’t know, “okay. Good. I mean, I said this before, but I’m sorry. I didn’t think—“

“You didn’t think a full-fledged werewolf would try to tear out the throat of a human boy just because you’ve decided he’s too gross to be in any way appetizing to even a monster.”

“Merlin, no, Remus, I mean—“

“I know what you mean,” Remus says. He leans against the wall. He seems to be mulling over something he’s trying very hard not to allow himself to feel. Sirius barely keeps himself from leaning closer. And why not? He’s already fucking forgotten how to breathe.

-

_In five minutes or so, a flood of students will make their way to the Christmas Feast. There will be the ever dreaded pudding. Sirius is likely an apparition—here in this room no one ever goes to, when he should be being insufferable with James, who will no doubt tear the castle apart looking for him sooner or later—Remus is almost sure it means something._

_“You don’t,” Sirius says. “You don’t know what I mean. Don’t you see? It’s just, it’s Christmas, you know.”_

_“I know,” Remus finds himself saying. “I heard you talking with James and Pete this morning.”_

_“Oh,” Sirius says, shifting uncomfortably. It’s suddenly very hard to look at him. Remus wishes he can just pretend to be asleep again. “Then is it alright? I don’t think I can stand it. So, please.”_

_“Please what, Sirius?”_

_Sirius’s knuckles are winter white against the door. “Talk to me, I ‘spose. I never used to think we talked much—we’d just sit there, and mostly I’d say something crazy and won’t realize it until you finally tell me. The funny thing is, I started saying crazy things to get you to tell me that I’m crazy. Isn’t that odd? Well, anyway, the thing is, James would just go along with whatever I’ve just spouted and Peter would throw a pillow at me.”_

_"You want me to tell you that you’re crazy.”_

_“Oh yeah,” Sirius says. Remus realizes with a start that he’s—oh, bollocks, if he even allows himself to think the adjective he’ll have to sacrifice whatever remains of his dignity to the Giant Squid. “If that’s what you want to say. But the point is, you’d be saying something, right?”_

_Two weeks past the full moon, he’s feeling cruel enough to just plop down to the floor. So he does, pulling his cardigan tighter around him, looking straight ahead._

_"Okay,” Sirius tells him. His voice is all sorts of tiny—claustrophobic, even. “I’ll wait.”_

_Remus doesn’t want to know for how long._

-

At eight, the feast is officially over.

At eight ten, Peter will look for the map in James’s trunk and find a handful of squeaking ice mice because the map is in Sirius’s pocket and Sirius was feeling generous at three thirty, when he tiptoed to Hogsmeade under the invisibility cloak.

On the seventh chime of nine, Remus takes out his Defense homework and starts on his essay, resting the tip of his quill against his lower lip, smudging moonlight along the raised veins of his hands. Something about the way he’s sitting suddenly makes sense.

Sirius runs his thumb along the jamb. “Do you see the moon?”

Probably against his better judgment, Remus says, “No. My back’s to the window.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Alright, Sirius.”

“No, really—“ Sirius peels himself from the doorway and goes to stand next to Remus and the action is so familiar he feels better immediately, which is just a little ironic, “—in the Mirror. Does it have anything to do with the moon?”

“What, so you can tell Snape?”

He’s never paid attention to silence before; that it can trickle through his skin to his bones gives it undue solemnity—lining the bones and weighing them down. He can feel Remus watching. Sirius wonders if maybe he’s burned all out anger because when he tries to kindle _something_ , anything, he fails.

(But remember, fires breathe; and he’s just about run out of that, too.)

“I’m sorry,” Remus says. He sounds like he means it, and that makes it all the worse. “You can sit down, if you want. I won’t run away.”

This, Sirius thinks, is his only victory. It’s entirely irrelevant, but he stands up a little straighter. “You don’t have to be sorry. Write your essay. Sometimes I think—“ Remus is giving him a very strange look. There’s a hiss from the back of the room, and the floating lanterns all come on, and the back-glow is light enough to make him blink “—sometimes I still think I’m about to start throwing around mudblood and blood traitor because that’s who I am, the arse from first year who hadn’t any idea what anything was, and lately I feel I’ll never get past that.”

“Of course you have.”

Like it’s certain.

For all he knows, maybe, maybe because Remus’s quill is bleeding ink through his sleeve—it is. He feels his mouth twist. “But I should be all fine now, shouldn’t I? All that rot Mummy dear fed me—Reg, that little swot—I even miss Father and I hardly even know him. That’s wrong, isn’t it? That I finally have something good happen to me—finally I’ve got this chance put it all behind me, and I see them in the hallways and everything comes undone again.”

In a perfect world—in the mirror world—his brothers are James and Regulus and Peter and all of them wear horrid overalls as they degnome Mrs. Potter’s garden. There’s this bush in the back with lovely white flowers that sing of the strangest things—like the nature of Remus Lupins and their near illegible letters from all over the world.

(One thing at a time, Sirius.)

“Are you—?”

“I’m fine. Look, I didn’t come here to make you feel sorry for me. I’m the one who’s sorry anyway. And you’re wrong—I do understand, you see? You could have mauled Snape—less than he deserves, honestly, greasy git—“

Sirius swears that’s almost a smile, though he can’t make out why it’s there for the life of him. “I could have killed him.”

“You couldn’t’ve,” Sirius says. It’s very important that Remus _gets_ this. “James was there.”

“He won’t always be.”

“Of course—“

-

_Remus plucks the pen from his shirt-cuff. His fingers come away stained, but he rakes them through his hair anyway. “Let’s talk about something else,” he says. “Come on. Teach me how to do a bloody Patronus Charm.”_

_And Sirius does laugh. Then, he pauses as if he can’t quite make the connection between the harsh sound and his throat. “Isn’t it because the memory you’re using isn’t strong enough?”_

_Behind Sirius, his reflection is still, very still. Involuntarily, he thinks of the Black Lake right before a stray leaf brushes by its surface. “That’s why I came here.”_

_“You didn’t tell me you figured it out, that it shows us what we want.”_

_All remnants of mirth have slipped from Sirius’s face. Remus can’t decide if it makes him look older or younger. But he is tired of looking up at Sirius, so he looks at the floor instead, and addresses the crack between tiles fifty four and fifty five, “Neither did you.”_

_“So what do you want, Moony?”_

_“Too much,” Remus offers._

_“Brilliant,” Sirius says, and sits down beside him. The cold floor between them only serves to exaggerate the proximity of warmth; Remus doesn’t have to look to know that Sirius’s head is cocked to the side, like it always is when he’s just about to figure something out. “What if you thought about an actual memory, then?”_

_Remus tries to resist the urge to inch away. He’s almost certain the action would be a hint of some sort. “I tried that, too.”_

_“Then try another memory.”_

_“It was my happiest memory.”_

_“If you really think so, then you don’t know yourself very well, do you?” Remus looks at him, sharply. Sirius is lying on his back, angling a lazy smile to the ceiling. From the corner of his eyes, Remus catches sight of his reflection standing in the moonlight. He doesn’t think he could bear it if this—lunacy, lunacy—seeps into his patronus, too. “When you get the right memory, you’d know. Anyway, it’s not only about being happy. It’s supposed to make you feel like that’s not the end of it—there’s more to come. Get it?”_

_“Thanks,” Remus says, meaning it._

_Something hefty has settled at the bottom of his stomach. It’s not an altogether unpleasant feeling. He pulls his wand from his pocket and skims his thumb over the notch by the tip, for luck. His reflection waves at his James, at Peter, at Padfoot who somehow manages to jump from the middle of the stone steps to the grass below. The full moon beaming overhead. Remus can feel his laughter echo in his bones. Third year in Defense they all lined up in front of a cupboard and Remus was smart enough to know the source of his fear. Here, he finds the same constants._

_Remus has ten memories of what it’s like to not dread the full moon. He doesn’t want to explain this to Sirius, but then again, maybe he already knows—Sirius’s head’s cocked to the side, still, the same lopsided smile._

_Maybe someday it will change, he thinks, or maybe it won't. He says, “Expecto patronum.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses. So I won't bother with making any.
> 
> I also went without a beta because I was impatient.


End file.
